Nagpur Municipal Corporation turns into biggest Provident Fund defaulter

NAGPUR: For Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), that caters to a large section of private sector workers, the biggest defaulter right now is Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) along with 100 other civic bodies throughout the state.
The Central government had issued orders in January 2011 to bring employees in such local self governments within the EPFO ambit.Leave aside compliance, all civic bodies except those of Katol and Kalmeshwar, have not even reverted with data asked for by EPFO. It has so far only received a list of employees with their dates of birth and names. There is no mention of salaries on the basis of which EPFO liability has to be calculated.
In absence of details, NMC's default alone considering an average salary of Rs 5,000 per employee is pegged to Rs 64 lakh a month. Retrospectively, it comes to Rs 15 core, said a source. Going by this thumb rule EPFO's Nagpur office, which also covers Akola and Aurangabad zones, has to collect over Rs 80 crore from the civic bodies.
Ideally, NMC and other municipalities should have reverted with details so that the exact details of liability could be worked out. Under the current scheme all employees with salary below Rs 6,500 per month have to be extended PF benefit. However, if a worker is covered once, there is no exit even if the salary rises above the ceiling level, said the source.
The issue was taken up when Sanjeev Jaiswal was NMC commissioner. However, by the time he could act he was transferred. Notices were sent subsequently too but there has been no response by the NMC. Current Municipal Commissioner Shyam Wardhane said it was only through TOI query that he had come to know of the matter. He assured to look into it. EPFO is now planning to initiate tough recovery action starting with the NMC, said a source.
NMC has 5,011 employees who ought to be under EPFO schemes. These are mainly contract and temporary workers not covered under general provident fund (GPF) under which regular employees of NMC are covered. There are several civic bodies that have regular employees not covered under any PF scheme too. With all other civic bodies clubbed, the total number of employees to be covered could be 25,000- 30,000 in Nagpur, Akola and Aurangabad zones.
EPFO always had employees from civic bodies inquiring if they could be covered under the scheme. However, this was not possible till January 2011 circular. In NMC's case, first notice intimating it about the new rule was sent soon after the order was issued. Finally EPFO has covered the agency since January 8, 2011.
No software to link UID
number with EPFO data
Despite orders to link payments by Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), with UID, so as to include it in the government's direct cash transfer scheme, there is a little chance that the job may be done any time soon as the current software with EPFO doesn't allow integrating Aadhaar card numbers with own data. The modification to software or a new one for the purpose is nowhere in sight.
The EPFO headquarters had issued orders a week ago asking the subordinate offices to infuse the subscribers' data with UID numbers in 43 districts by December 31. A pilot project for Centre's direct cash transfer scheme is under way in these districts. The list has Wardha and Amravati from Vidarbha. The union finance minister P Chidambaram was scheduled to inaugurate the projects in the two districts on Friday but the programme has been postponed. EPFO sources said right now they would only collect UID numbers.